From living on a farm and then a ranch in Wyoming I have a passion for good food and recipes. I also am immersed in the history and personal stories of the Volga Germans. All my grandparents came from Russia, but were of German descent. This places me in a small, but unique group of people within the United States. I would like to introduce you to these wonderful, hardworking people who still cling to their values, tradition, and religion.

I decided to combine my Volga German upbringing with stories and recipes from my childhood and beyond.

I now reside in Cave Creek, AZ with my husband David and new AZ Rescue A Golden, Dudley DoRight.

I work in the food and beverage department for a 5 diamond resort in Scottsdale, AZ. I continue to research the Volga Germans through my family tree and I still cook and bake our special german foods from “scratch”.

From living on a farm and then a ranch in Wyoming I have a passion for good food and recipes. I also am immersed in the history and personal stories of the Volga Germans. All my grandparents came from Russia, but were of German descent. This places me in a small, but unique group of people within the United States. I would like to introduce you to these wonderful, hardworking people who still cling to their values, tradition, and religion.

I decided to combine my Volga German upbringing with stories and recipes from my childhood and beyond.

I now reside in Cave Creek, AZ with my husband David and new AZ Rescue A Golden, Dudley DoRight.

I work in the food and beverage department for a 5 diamond resort in Scottsdale, AZ. I continue to research the Volga Germans through my family tree and I still cook and bake our special german foods from “scratch”.

It wasn’t until I was a student at the Culinary Institute of America in the late 1970s that I first realized that growing up as a first generation Italian-American family in the Bronx and New Jersey wasn’t as typical as I had thought. My parents and their parents were all born and raised in Italy. Throughout my youth and beyond, my father and mother referred to their five children, four boys and a girl, by the number in the order of which we were born. To this day, my mother still occasionally refers to me as “Number Two Son.” But when it came to hanging around the kitchen, I was definitely the number one pest.

I was the little punk kid always by my mother’s side as she was cooking or baking. I would jockey for position wherever my mother moved, stand on a kitchen chair up against the stove, and otherwise constantly be in her way as I tried to get a better look at whatever was being done. Same when either of the grandmothers – Nona Lisa or Grandma Melfi – or other relatives were there.

Maybe it was something in the water around Pisa, but I suspect it’s a genetic condition. For my mother, her mother, cousins, aunts and countless generations before them in this food-fueled blood line, the world revolved around the kitchen and dining room table. Life was not good unless family, friends, or anyone close to the dinner table was fed to excess, ritually seduced with course after course of delicious, abundant and temptingly presented food. This attitude seemed to pervade all branches of the family, but my inspiration and mentor was Maria Gracia Melfi, aka Mama Melfi, aka The Food Pusher.

The Food Pusher moniker was given to her by one of my friends when I was a teenager. Anyone who was anywhere near our home, at anything close to a mealtime, would have a seat at our table. Attendance was mandatory, as were second and third helpings. It seemed normal enough to my siblings and me. By the time I made my way into the world and realized that maybe this wasn’t so typical, the die was cast. My passion for food and cooking was totally ingrained, and my goal in life was to be a professional chef. But I also learned that Mama Melfi wasn’t the only one.

Over the years, I discovered that practically everyone knows a food pusher. It might be a friend, a family member, or a perfect stranger. Within moments after walking in their door – perhaps even for the first time – she will ask, “Would you like something to eat?” It’s a rhetorical question. Regardless of your answer, you will sit, and you will eat.

While food pushers know no bounds of race, creed or color, it is largely an Italian stereotype. From my personal experience, deservedly so. In the unlikely event that you don’t personally know food pushers, you’ve certainly seen them in movies. Recall the scene from the classic gangster movie Goodfellas, where the characters of DeNiro, Liotta and Joe Pesci sneak into Pesci’s mother’s house in the middle of the night to get shovels to bury the mobster they just kicked to death. The mother awakens, and within a few minutes and in spite of the men’s repeated refusals, they’re all sitting down to a huge breakfast of bread, eggs, potatoes, onions and peppers, and Italian sausage.

In the mind of the Food Pusher: If you love my food, you love me. If you don’t eat what I’ve cooked, you don’t love me. If Sigmund Freud had been born Sigmund Melfi, he would have been 150 pounds heavier and a pioneer of the gastroanalytical theory that love for pasta is the primary human motivation. But that’s as far as I’ll get into the psychology behind the Food Pusher. To accent the recipes, I will tell it as I saw it. Life with a food pusher in all its graphic, calorie-filled detail.

As of this writing, I have been a professional chef for over 30 years. For three decades I have promised my mom that I’ll cook many grand meals for her, being a chef and all, but I rarely do. It’s still hard to compete with her in the kitchen. Not so much with the recipes; As you’ll see in this cookbook, I still use many of her and Nona’s originals. But when it comes to jockeying for position at the stove, she still commands the prime spot. “You’re inna my way, Number Two.”

With this cookbook, Mama Melfi and I finally meet on neutral ground. I open the Melfi family recipe vault with the spirit of abundance and love for food with which it was invariably served. Most are my mother’s and grandmother’s original recipes – no doubt going back countless generations further – but I also include creations of my own that extend the finest Italian tradition.

It is rare nowadays for a son to get the opportunity to spend time with his mother, especially when it is not a holiday or tragic event. The following recipes are the result of over two and a half years of arguments, fighting, aggravation, and love. While this may not be the most perfectly refined example of modern cookery, it has heart and many great recipes. This cookbook is also a story. It is the journey of a woman as seen through her son’s eyes. The stories paint a picture of Iraq, Israel, America and most of all, my mother’s remarkable journey, all with the purpose of bringing the reader new ideas, flavors and attitudes to cooking. This book embodies all the joy that comes with feeding the ones you love (and even those that you don’t.)

—Aric Mutchnick

This cookbook is not about the right way of cooking, it is about an attitude towards cooking. A recipe is just a guideline for your creativity and love to flourish. Cooking is about learning, not following the rules. Change any ingredients you like, create your own recipe, and learn from your children. I learned that is there is no formula for raising kids, only love and trying what works. Cooking is no different; it is about love and figuring out what gives you joy. I have never met a recipe I did not change. In cooking, the only authenticity you must pledge loyalty to is yourself.

—Aviva Nadia Kleinbaum

From living on a farm and then a ranch in Wyoming I have a passion for good food and recipes. I also am immersed in the history and personal stories of the Volga Germans. All my grandparents came from Russia, but were of German descent. This places me in a small, but unique group of people within the United States. I would like to introduce you to these wonderful, hardworking people who still cling to their values, tradition, and religion.

I decided to combine my Volga German upbringing with stories and recipes from my childhood and beyond.

I now reside in Cave Creek, AZ with my husband David and new AZ Rescue A Golden, Dudley DoRight.

I work in the food and beverage department for a 5 diamond resort in Scottsdale, AZ. I continue to research the Volga Germans through my family tree and I still cook and bake our special german foods from “scratch”.